


Hunt

by kaeda



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Angst, Dark, Deathfic, Gen, Road Trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-14
Updated: 2007-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-04 23:52:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeda/pseuds/kaeda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The war against Sylar goes terribly, horribly wrong. AU as of episode 1x16.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunt

**Author's Note:**

> This was written right after episode 1x15 and it's very dark and weird and long. However, I still really like it and it stands on its own, as long as you remember that it's completely AU at this point.

"Zane," Mohinder says patiently as he watches the other man fidget in the passenger seat. "We still have two hours left to drive. Would you like to stop somewhere and take a break?"

"I'm _fine_," Zane grits out, his teeth clenched and eyes wild. Mohinder is used to this by now; the man, for all his initial zen calm when he first met him, sometimes gets short and irritable, as though he can't quite control his powers all of the time. Mohinder is kind to him, but can't hide his scientific curiosity – after all, Zane is the first one of these people who he's actually spent any length of time with, and his abilities are…astounding.

Zane worries his lower lip and his fingers knead at his sleeves when he's like this, and Mohinder has learned to just leave him alone. He keeps the music off in the rental car – last time Zane tried to turn it off and accidentally melted the radio, so Mohinder takes no chances now – and concentrates on the peace of driving down the South Carolina coast towards Florida. Their destination is a small town called Lisbon, where a woman named Candace Wilheim lives with her husband. Candace hasn't returned his phone calls, just like Tracy Chobham up in Maryland, but in person it is much easier to convince someone, and as a bonus, Zane is handsome and charming when he wants to be. When he's not acting paranoid and obsessive compulsive.

Sometimes Mohinder wonders about the sanity of his helper.

It has been two days since they left Virginia Beach. Twice now, Zane has suddenly demanded that Mohinder pull over in the next town and wandered off. The first time he went to use the bathroom and ended up missing for six hours. Mohinder tore the small town in Virginia apart looking for his charge, nightmare scenarios in his mind – _Sylar got him!_ his mind taunted him, but then Zane had reappeared unscathed as suddenly as he'd disappeared and simply said that he'd needed some time to himself.

The second time he didn't even bother with an excuse. Mohinder booked them a hotel for the night and didn't ask questions.

Zane fiddles with the seat controls, reclining the back so that he can lie down, then pulling it all the way back to a sitting position. Mohinder is becoming used to the strange habits of his companion already, but he still finds it distracting. He sees a rest stop ahead and pulls over.

"I said you didn't need to stop," Zane says petulantly. "We have to get to Florida." His voice is dark, and Mohinder doesn't like it when he uses this tone. He seems less like the harmless man scared of his abilities, and more like a predator silently stalking his prey. Mohinder shakes his head and suddenly that feeling is gone – Zane is all harmless insanity again, scratching at his hairline with one sleeve-covered hand and pouting like a child.

"I'm afraid I have to use the bathroom," Mohinder explains to him. "You can stay in the car—"

"I'm going to walk around," Zane decides determinedly, and is out of the car in a flash, setting off with an odd canter towards a far-off set of picnic tables. Mohinder shrugs and goes into the restroom.

When he exits a few moments later, Zane is gone. He quickly scans the perimeter of the rest area, which is surrounded on all sides by forest except for the clearing with the picnic tables. A lone family eats sandwiches at the tables, but there is no one else around.

While he's looking, a lone black car drives up to the rest station. A young man wearing a black suit steps out, looks around, and spots Mohinder. He walks over and smiles amiably.

"Dr. Mohinder Suresh?" he asks, his whole air one of friendly confidence, although Mohinder gets the same sinister feeling from him that he does from Zane on occasion. "I was wondering if you'd be interested in coming with me. My employers are very interested in your work."

Mohinder doesn't trust him. "How did you find me?" he asks.

"I assure you, you can come with me willingly, or I can use force," the man tells him, and Mohinder sees a gun holster beneath his sport coat. He swallows hard and hopes Zane has the sense to stay missing for awhile longer.

"I…suppose I could come talk to your associates," he acknowledges, thinking uncomfortably of the list of names in his jacket's pocket, a list he's not quite sure he wants this man to have. He doesn't know what Sylar looks like – the man is dangerous and hunting people like the people on his list, and he has to protect them at all costs. He's about to follow the man towards his car when suddenly everything goes chaotic.

A picnic table hurls through the air and hits the man, squishing him effectively into the elegant black sedan he was driving. Mohinder gapes at it, then turns. Someone with powers must be nearby.

All he sees is Zane, standing nervously by the bathrooms like a lost child, nibbling on his lower lip and tugging on his hair.

"Did you do that?" he asks, fear and awe tingeing his voice. He shouldn't be scared, he knows – Zane _melts_ things, he doesn't use telekinesis, he couldn't have just…killed that man. Mohinder feels sick. The car is a dented heap and there's something that looks like blood. "You killed him!" he says, slightly hysterically.

"I want to meet them," Zane says in a low, menacing tone. "He was going to take you away, and then I would never have been able to meet them." He fidgets nervously.

"That wasn't a melting ability," Mohinder says stupidly.

"I don't know!" Zane freaks out and scurries behind the bathrooms. He's crouched in a ball and breathing hard when Mohinder stumbles over him, staring at the floor and beginning to hyperventilate. "I didn't mean to kill him I don't know what happened."

"It's okay," Mohinder says calmly, using the tone of voice he's always used with animals. It's _not_ okay, he thinks to himself, Zane can't just _kill_ people whenever he feels that they're being threatened, but if the man can't control his powers then Mohinder can't really blame him. "We should call the police." Panic is starting to rise in his throat, and most of him wants to run back to the car and see if the man is okay.

Zane starts shaking. "We can't. They'll know, they'll know I'm a f-freak and they'll lock me up." The family of four who was picnicking nearby had seen the whole thing anyway – they most likely have already called the police, Mohinder reasons. There is every reason to get out of there before the authorities arrived. "I don't want to be locked up," Zane is whimpering.

"You're not going to be locked up," Mohinder tells him kindly. "We'll leave." He takes him by the hand and guides him back to the rental car, trying desperately not to look at the wreckage of the sleek black car. He is so busy avoiding his own guilt that he misses the sinister, calculating smile that momentarily mars Zane's features.

\-----------------------------

"If you do have a new power," Mohinder mentions once they're back on the road and he's stopped feeling as though he's going to be rid of his breakfast every five minutes, "we need to train you to control it so that doesn't happen again." He worries that the man in black is dead - he worries that he's _not_. If the authorities get a name, if they track down Zane… Mohinder is less concerned about his own well being – he deserves to be locked up, after what he just witnessed, but Zane is slightly demented and unsure of himself, and doesn't deserve to be punished.

"I don't know what I did," Zane says sullenly, his voice small. He is playing a game on Mohinder's cell phone, and Mohinder hopes desperately that he doesn't melt it by mistake. "I saw that man trying to take you away and I knew I had to stop him and then the picnic table was _flying_."

"He might not be dead," Mohinder says, if only to reassure himself. "He might have just broken something."

"He was hit with a table," Zane says in a rare bout of perception. "I think he's most certainly dead." He nibbles on his fingernail and stares out the window, suddenly losing interest in the game. "I wonder if Candace will want to help me learn how to use my power."

"She might," Mohinder replies noncommittally, knowing they are likely to face another cold reception. Zane wants to make friends with these people, share his experiences, but the rest of them are suspicious and scared, and after three visits, Zane is still the only one willing to talk to Mohinder for any length of time.

"I wonder what she can do." Zane's mind has already forgotten the man he's killed – he's thinking of the future now, of comrades and powers and chances. "Do you think she can fly?"

"That is definitely one of the abilities that my father discovered during his research," Mohinder tells him vaguely. "It's just as possible that she can do something completely different, like instantly regenerate or create fire from her fingertips." He doesn't like the way Zane's lips quirk upward in a smile when he mentions instant regeneration. He's noticed it twice so far, and it sends chills down his spine.

An hour later, they pull into the driveway of the Wilheim house.

\-----------------------------

Candace Wilheim is a petite brunette woman of thirty-five with the ability to shrink matter with a touch. She shrinks Mohinder's shoes accidentally while they're drinking coffee. Zane stares at her in wonder all throughout the afternoon, and Mohinder thinks it's less because she's attractive and more because she's just like him. He wants to leave them alone together, let them get to know each other, discuss their abilities without an outsider like himself around.

"Is your husband going to be back soon?" he asks, not wanting to overstay their welcome, but Candace just laughs and shakes her head.

"He's away on business," she says and tilts her head prettily. Mohinder smiles amiably.

"I feel as though I should leave you two alone," he says. "Zane, I'll book us a place to stay." Zane smiles graciously at him but Candace looks alarmed.

"Oh, you must stay here!" she insists.

"I really couldn't impose," Mohinder explains, and excuses himself. He finds a local motel and books a room, but as he drives back to Candace's house a good hour later, he feels a sense of foreboding. He swallows hard and lets himself in.

Zane is staring at a puddle on the floor in the kitchen, as if in shock.

Mohinder feels sick when he realizes what that puddle is, and he runs quickly to the sink and empties his stomach. He's not sure he can handle two deaths in one day. He's not sure he can handle death at all.

"I didn't mean to melt her," Zane says over and over, "I liked her, she was my friend, I didn't mean to melt her, I didn't mean to melt her." Mohinder still feels sick and faint. He wants to call the police, he wants to call _someone_ \- but Zane is so fragile. Zane is dangerous, he tells himself, Zane doesn't do it on purpose but he's a menace. How long until the next victim is Mohinder himself?

Not for the first time, he feels a stab of fear. But even more so, he feels responsible.

"I—" Mohinder starts to say, and then he can't handle it, he can't stay in that kitchen with the _smell_ and the puddle that used to be a cheerful, beautiful woman, and the man who can't control his powers and _melted_ someone. He is out the door and by the car before he can even blink, leaning against the driver's-side door and panting heavily. He wants to cry, but something is lodged in his throat, something that feels an awful lot like guilt.

If he hadn't let Zane come along, Candace Wilheim would still be alive.

He thinks of Candace Wilheim's husband, coming home to…_that_, and suddenly he knows he has to call someone, an anonymous tip, anything. He can't let the authorities get a hold of Zane, he knows this as well, and it's the only thing that sends him back into the house to guide the traumatized man to the car. Mohinder is frightened of his companion, but Zane is obsessively keeping his hands to himself as if he's afraid he'll melt the next thing he touches, and finally Mohinder feels safe enough to get into the car with him and start the engine.

He calls the police once they're miles from Lisbon, and feels sick and angry from lying.

\-----------------------------

He avoids calling on other gifted people after that. He brings Zane back with him to New York, because the man has nowhere else to go and Mohinder is terrified of what will happen if he lets him go off on his own. Zane has seemingly forgotten about Candace already, and Mohinder throws both of them into his studies. Zane picks up concepts and ideas remarkably fast and has a mind like a steel trap. Mohinder is astonished at this – it seems like he only has to tell him something once, and it's forever seared on his memory. It is highly impressive, and Mohinder wonders vaguely if it's the side-effect of having such powers.

Nathan Petrelli stops by occasionally to talk about his brother and Zane always eyes him hungrily. Mohinder has determined that Petrelli must have a power as well, and Zane's interest seems to confirm his suspicions, although he has no idea how Zane knows this. Zane asks lots of questions about Peter, and Mohinder pretends that there isn't a greedy glint in his eyes when he finds out about his empathic abilities.

Sylar kills someone in Manhattan a few days later, an older man named Harry Flefton, and Mohinder locks Zane in his apartment for days and refuses to take him out with him. Zane is the only one of these people that he has, even if he's deadly and insane, and Mohinder would much rather have him under his influence than wandering the streets alone, easy prey for a predator like Sylar. Despite the uneasiness and the guilt, Mohinder finds himself growing fond of Zane, enjoying having another student. It helps that Zane is gifted and bright, and that he thirsts after knowledge of his abilities.

Captivity doesn't agree with him, however, and soon he disappears for several days. When he returns later, he seems in good spirits, but the sinister feeling surrounding him has returned. He goes back to studying genetics with a passion and Mohinder doesn't ask him where he's been.

The next five names on his list have all been killed by Sylar, he discovers soon after, and all recently. The serial killer is becoming bolder, his kills more accurate, and Mohinder worries for Zane more than ever, even though none of the kills occurred in the New York area. He writes 'deceased' next to Byron Bevington (Marshfield, VT) with a sad sigh. So many special men and women, gone with a killer's whims.

It isn't until much later that Mohinder wishes he'd kept a chronological account of Sylar's kills.

Peter Petrelli shows up on Mohinder's doorstep one day, eyes blazing. His mentor is missing, he growls, an invisible man. Zane stares at him with interest and slinks over to him, and suddenly Petrelli disappears in surprise.

He's gone before Mohinder can blink. "Well, he's definitely learned to control his powers," he remarks to Zane, who is staring out at the empty corridor with disappointment written across his features.

"I really wanted to meet him," Zane says at last before returning to the genetics book he'd abandoned.

\-----------------------------

The prophesized apocalypse comes and goes, and nothing out of ordinary occurs. Nathan Petrelli wins the election, and comes to him the next day with a smile. He explains that his brother properly learned to control his odd powers, and Mohinder is pleased despite himself.

Zane follows Nathan after the politician leaves. Mohinder has stopped trying to keep him in the apartment and so thinks nothing of it.

Three days later, Nathan Petrelli is reported missing.

\-----------------------------

It has been four months since Mohinder first found Zane in the odd little apartment in Virginia. Four long months of study and preparation. Mohinder knows they'll have to fight Sylar sometime, but the other heroes are wary of speaking to him. He befriends the precognitive artist, Isaac Mendez, and is soon introduced to the cheerful Hiro Nakamura, who apparently can stop time. The greedy glint in Zane's eyes reappears briefly when they discover this.

Nakamura stares briefly at Zane. "Have I…met you?" he asks in halting English. Zane shifts uncomfortably and shakes his head, pulling at his sweater sleeves nervously. Nakamura grins at him after a moment and goes back to talking to Mendez, and later Mohinder finds Zane in the painter's studio, staring at a large painting of a man with no face wearing all black.

"He's our enemy," Mendez tells Mohinder, speaking of the man in the painting.

"He's stronger than me," is all Zane says before he loses interest and walks away.

Despite his misgivings, Zane's abilities are progressing nicely, and he no longer melts objects or people accidentally. He's shown no more signs of telekinesis, which leads Mohinder to think that the incident with the man in the suit and the picnic table was nothing more than a fluke when he had felt threatened. They don't speak of that man, or of Candace Wilheim, but sometimes late at night Mohinder prays and asks for forgiveness for leading Zane to them.

With such a hotbed of heroes gathering in New York City, it's only a matter of time before Sylar shows up again. The first victim is a teenaged girl in the Bronx. She's not even on his list, and Mohinder feels a twinge of sadness. There are so many who he hasn't even identified, and Sylar is killing them before he can even find them. It feels like every name he calls on his father's list is now deceased, except for the ones they know personally here in New York, and he finds himself growing more and more frightened. Sylar is out there, unstoppable, and innocent people are dying one after another.

It's only a matter of time before Sylar comes for him and Zane. The thought makes Mohinder's blood run cold. It feels like everything is spiraling out of control and there's nothing he can do about it. Soon the police are going to connect Sylar's victims with his phone calls, and he's terrified that he will be arrested for murders that he's trying with all his power to prevent.

He finally gets in touch with another live person on his list, a telepath named Matt Parkman. Parkman is working for the FBI and claims to have had several run-ins with Sylar. "We're doing our best to catch him," he assures Mohinder. "We won't let him get away with this." But despite that, the murders continue.

Finally, Mohinder decides to take advantage of Zane's intelligence and memory and throws a stack of newspaper clippings in front of him.

"There has to be a pattern," he says. "Sylar can't be attacking these people at random. There's got to be a way to catch him."

"Use bait," Zane suggests boredly, making his pencil slowly melt and reshape into a statue. "You've got plenty of us around here. Sacrifice one for the cause." The coldness of this statement worries Mohinder – he'd felt that Zane had made friends with all the heroes at Mendez's gallery. The bait idea would be a good one if Mohinder didn't feel so guilty, but Zane is determined. "We're all capable of defending ourselves," he explains rationally. "Especially Nakamura, or Petrelli." Peter Petrelli has joined the group recently and Zane's obsession with him has begun anew.

In the end, Peter agrees to be their bait, mostly because he's been wanting to take a hunk out of Sylar for awhile. Nathan's disappearance and subsequent death was eventually blamed on the serial killer, and Peter has been quietly mastering all his various abilities with a desire for vengeance. If any of them can take on Sylar and win, after all, it's Peter.

They all wait tensely for days as Peter trots his abilities out in the open, wanders the streets without any protections up, and taunts predators into existence.

"I don't think it's working," he confides to Zane and Mohinder one night. Zane stabs him with a pencil randomly, his favorite pastime, and watches eagerly as the skin regenerates over the wound without Peter even thinking about it. He really wants to see Peter fly, but Peter won't use that ability since Nathan died, and Mohinder's not surprised.

"I could help you," Zane suggests, chewing on a strand of his hair, which has grown long. "Two of us are better than one, and I can defend myself, too." His idea has merit and Mohinder agrees, and for the next week, Peter and Zane go Sylar-baiting. Just as Mohinder's about to call the whole plan off, he comes home to find Zane curled up in a small ball in his kitchen, shaking. Peter is nowhere to be found, and Zane can't be persuaded to tell what he saw.

"It was horrible, it was horrible, he's unstoppable, he's _unstoppable_," Zane says over and over again, until Mohinder manages to convince him to get into the spare bed and take a sedative.

Mohinder aches for his pupil, for the trauma he knows he experienced, and frets all night over whether or not the man is okay. He aches for Peter Petrelli, another bright young man snuffed out, and wonders if it hadn't been for his plan, would Peter still be alive? Zane sleeps for days, refuses to eat, and then Mohinder comes home to find him no longer in the spare room, his belongings gone and the bed made nice and neatly, as if a slightly-insane man hadn't made his home there for nearly five months.

\-----------------------------

He convinces Isaac and Hiro that they should leave the country, and soon he's the only one left in New York. He hardly ever tracks down live heroes anymore, but when he does, he immediately arranges travel plans for them and gets them out of the country and away from Sylar. It's his one consolation – the serial killer hasn't yet left America, except for several forays into Canada. Mohinder plans to catch him and destroy him before he can move on to other countries, and when he receives postcards from Japan, he smiles.

He desperately tries to relocate Zane, mostly to get him out of the country as well. Every day that Zane doesn't appear on the list of Sylar's victims is a day that Mohinder breathes a sigh of relief, but Sylar kills regularly now and is never seen. The FBI can't catch him, and soon Mohinder's contact within their ranks, Parkman, is another one of his victims. He adds another picture to the wall that has become a memorial, stares out at the empty city, and hates himself for being unable to stop the massacre that is occurring.

He's beginning to think that Peter Petrelli had been their best hope against Sylar, and Peter Petrelli had somehow failed. In every one of his postcards, Hiro offers to return to help with the hunt, but Mohinder knows deep in his heart that the cheerful Japanese man is a juicy morsel to a man like Sylar and implores him to stay overseas. Hiro's powers would be a great boon to the hunt, but a man like Sylar disappears like smoke, and the ability to manipulate time is only useful if one's target can first be found.

No one even knows what Sylar looks like.

\-----------------------------

A man in Texas contacts him, informs him that he should stay out of the Sylar hunt before he finds himself killed. He kindly informs Mr. Bennett that his daughter is on his list, and would he please keep an eye on her for him. Mr. Bennett sobers immediately. Claire is studying abroad in Germany, he explains, and Mohinder is more relieved than he can ever imagine to know a seventeen year old girl isn't going to have her brain cut out anytime soon.

But despite Mr. Bennett's efforts, and Mohinder's, Sylar continues to kill.

\-----------------------------

Nine months after Mohinder Suresh first met Zane Taylor, he's cooking breakfast in his small New York kitchen when Zane materializes out of nothing and smiles at him.

"Haven't you figured it out yet?" he asks darkly as Mohinder drops his hot frying pan back onto the stove in surprise.

"Zane!" he exclaims warmly, relieved to see his pupil safe from harm with brains intact, but then it registers that Zane had come out of nowhere. Invisibility.

Which was one of Peter Petrelli's abilities, learned from his unnamed mentor. A mentor who had gone missing quite awhile back.

"I see you haven't." Zane's voice is smooth and rich, like chocolate, and completely unlike the paranoid, nervous man Mohinder had known for all those months. "I'll explain it for you, Mohinder _Suresh_. They were broken, and I fixed them. I made them better."

Betrayal floods Mohinder's gut. "No," he says in a broken whisper.

"Oh, yes." Zane is pacing like a cat, watching him with amusement, the predator who has finally caught his prey. "Peter Petrelli turned his back to me, you know. He was so careful around everyone else, ready for an attack from every angle, but I was his ally. He trusted me."

"No," Mohinder whispers again.

"And I really must thank you for leading me to Candace Wilheim," Zane continues. "Her ability has proven most useful. Did you know I've learned to shrink _myself_?" He laughs, and it's a sick, scary sound, like darkness.

"You're _Sylar_," Mohinder says.

"Yes," comes the reply. "And you led me to them all. One by one, like lambs to slaughter. Your list, your dreams, your desire to protect them. It destroyed them _all_." He keeps laughing, loudly, manically, and Mohinder feels sick to his stomach. So many deaths, so many innocents killed because he was stupid, because he _trusted_ Zane, because he thought that the nervous man was nothing more than he seemed. He hates himself so much at that moment, but hates Sylar even more.

"You're a fool just like your father," Zane, no, Sylar adds. "I'll enjoy killing you just like I enjoyed killing him. You're not broken, I just want to see you die." He grins. "Do you know why I killed that man in the suit, with the picnic table? He would have known me, you see. He would have told you who I was, and I would never have gotten my hands on your precious list. I enjoyed killing him, just like I'll enjoy killing you, and then that bastard from Texas." He steps forward and Mohinder looks into his eyes and knows he's about to die, knows he's going to fail everyone. His father's eyes are on him, Peter Petrelli's, Candace Wilheim's. Unnamed heroes all over the country, dead before he could reach them, all staring at him.

So he grabs the hot frying pan that had clattered onto the stove moments before and hits Sylar across the face. It comes unexpected and Sylar screams like an animal, a blood-curdling sound. Mohinder scurries by him and flies out the door, into his apartment. He has no powers and no abilities, but this is the man who killed _Eden_, who killed Peter, who killed Nathan and pretty Candace and shy girls in Manhattan and _so many innocents_. He is running down the stairs but he knows Sylar will gain on him, because Sylar has so many abilities and a burned face can't hold him for long. He's thankful the girl with instant regeneration escaped his grasp, or even a burning frying pan wouldn't have stalled him.

He runs out of his apartment building and onto the sidewalk but it is too late, Sylar is flying down from Mohinder's apartment with vengeance written all over his features. His face is a livid, angry red and his eyes are wild and insane, and Mohinder in an instant knows that he's going to die.

Then, time stops.

\-----------------------------

Mohinder comes to consciousness in the middle of the street. Hiro Nakamura and Isaac Mendez are standing before him, and Sylar's body is lying in front of them, impaled in the heart with a katana that looks suspiciously familiar.

"That was for Peter Petrelli," Hiro says darkly, in a tone Mohinder though he'd never hear the cheerful Japanese man use.

"And his brother," says Isaac, "and all the others we couldn't save." He turns towards Mohinder. "I painted you, here. Sylar flying out the window after you. Hiro took one look at it and knew we had to return."

"We got the bad man," Hiro says smugly, but his eyes are sad. None of them like death, and all of them have seen it entirely too much. Mohinder suddenly remembers and sinks to his knees as guilt pools in his stomach. What would Hiro and Isaac think if they knew that he led Sylar to most of his victims, that because of _him_, Sylar was able to grow so strong, to kill so many…?

Hiro lays a hand on his shoulder.

"You have much work to do, Suresh-san," he says solemnly. "There are…many of us, out there. With these powers. You have to…bring us together. Save the world!" His English is still stilted, worse than Mohinder remembers, but perhaps being in Japan again made his language grow rusty.

"There are many of us abroad," Isaac adds. "I've been painting them, and tracking them down. We don't blame you for this. You tried to help them." Sirens ring in the distance and Mohinder knows they have to get out of there. Hiro removes his katana from Sylar, wipes the blade clean on Sylar's shirt, and places it in the sheath across his back.

"We have another ticket," he says, showing the envelope to Mohinder. "Come to Japan with us! Gather heroes, help us learn!" He smiles brilliantly and Isaac smiles slightly too. Their humor is contagious and Mohinder wants to start laughing hysterically, and that's when he knows that shock is setting in.

"I guess I can go with you," he admits before the hysterics start. They have to get out of there before the police show up, and the sirens are getting closer. Isaac and Hiro each grab one of his arms, and together the three of them walk away, into the future.

\-----------------------------

Epilogue

Mohinder is content in his laboratory in Japan. Hiro's rich father has outfitted him with all the latest in state of the art equipment and he has learned more than ever before about the natures of the genes that govern special abilities. A team of heroes is forming under his nose, led by Hiro Nakamura, but despite the stream of live people coming through daily, the dead ones still haunt Mohinder and cover his joy like a shroud. He sees their faces and their names in his sleep, and sometimes he even dreams of Zane.

Zane, before he knew who Zane was. The student who loved to learn, the man who just wanted to be understood. The man who had played him for a fool for five months. Mohinder's heart aches with betrayal and guilt, and he wakes up often with his pillow wet with tears. He wipes them away angrily and starts his day with shame, like he has for months.

"You can't blame yourself forever," Isaac tells him, but they all miss Peter Petrelli and the others Sylar destroyed, and watching new heroes build their lives and their abilities doesn't ease the ache from the loss of the old ones. A young family from Las Vegas, all three of them special, arrives a few days in, and Mohinder's relief at finding more live American heroes briefly overshadows his guilt.

But it isn't until a smiling blonde college student walks into his laboratory one day with an adorable grin on her face that Mohinder's heart truly begins to heal. "Hi," she says, voice lilting pleasantly with a Texan accent. "My name's Claire Bennett and I'm here to join you guys." He _knows_ her.

He knows Sylar wanted this girl.

He knows he saved this girl.

In the end, that's all that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> Several things I want to say. First, I realise the timeline is a bit screwed up after they get back to NYC - in 1x15, Hiro says they have "less than two weeks" before the bomb goes off and I'm pretty sure I fit more than two weeks of events in, but when I went to try to switch it around it ended up sounding awkward, so I just left it the way it originally was. Perhaps they travel at superspeed :)
> 
> I also know there's a lack of characters like Simone and Ando in here. I figure Ando was with Hiro in NY, he just never caught Mohinder's attention. Simone...I don't know enough about her or her powers to write her, so I just left her out. Maybe she left the country or something. I also apologize for the massive character death in this fic - I killed off some of my favorites, and it made me sad to do so :(
> 
> I know HRG and the Haitian and Linderman are all conspicuously absent too (well except for HRG), but I don't know how I could have fit them in.
> 
> Despite all that, I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
